Erin Smith
Santa Cruz, CA - California, United States
Erin Smith was diagnosed with celiac disease in the early 1980s, so she’s been eating gluten-free almost her entire life. Erin has a unique perspective of growing up in the gluten-free community and blogs about living — and enjoying — a gluten-free lifestyle.
Erin Smith has been writing her gluten-free lifestyle blog Gluten-Free Fun since 2007. In 2011, she launched Gluten-Free Globetrotter, a website that encourages those with celiac disease to travel the world and not be scared about eating gluten-free domestically and abroad. Erin is also the lead organizer of the NYC Celiac Disease Meetup group, a social community that has grown to over 1850 members in the 8 years she has been organizing the group.
http://glutenfreefun.blogspot.com
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To this day, my post "McDonald's Fries are NOT gluten-free" still gets the most traffic. I know that restaurants update their ingredients from time to time, so I thought I would revisit this topic. Guess what?? McDonald's fries are still NOT gluten-free.

Please note: All information in this blog posting is for McDonald's in the United States only. From the comments and tweets I am getting, it looks like McDonald's around the world have VERY different ingredients. Beware!

Here are a few other menu items that might surprise as having gluten. You can find all of this information and the complete list of ingredients for all products on the McDonald's website.

What is more frustrating is the fact that their menu varies so much around the world. Here in the UK the fries are GF which obviously led to issues when we visited the US and wrongly assumed they would be there as well. Add in that in some countries like Spain and Norway for example you can even get GF bread, they are quite a confusing company!

To the last anonymous comment, the information I posted today is from the McDonald's website in 2011 which clearly states that the french fries have an ingredient that is derived from wheat.

"natural beef flavor [wheat and milk derivatives]*)"

Whether or not the "FLAVORING Agent added to the par-fry oil included a wheat and dairy source, which the par-fry company states does not contain proteins (therefore cannot be allergenic)", as a Celiac I do not make it a habit of ingesting food that is derived from wheat.

McDonald’s as a company does not state that their fries are gluten-free. Therefore, I would assume that they are not gluten-free.

You can see even more comments here: http://glutenfreehomemaker.com/2010/08/mcdonalds-fries-part-2/

In response to anon: I know that the hydrolyzed wheat which McDonald's fries have is allowed in GF foods in the UK. But I've also read one of the main studies that say it is 'safe,' and all the participants who didn't react were those who were eating a <200 ppm diet and not getting sick off of THAT. Considering that the UK is lowering its standard to <20 ppm because they don't think that 200 ppm is safe enough, I'm not trusting the hydrolyzed wheat, either.

I love when people post snarky comments as "anonymous" ;-) Thanks for posting this, I can't believe their sweet and sour sauce is not GF!!! Not to mention all the other things that are surprising. Shouldn't be eating at McD's anyway so I guess this isn't a bad thing :)

Ha! Jen... I thought the same thing about the anonymous post. I agree we shouldn't be eating McDonald's anyway, but I really wanted people to be aware and to be care. If Anon wants to eat fries, that is fine. Not me!

The McDonalds USA allergen list for its french fries CLEARLY states "CONTAINS: WHEAT", because the beef flavour "starts from hydrolyzed wheat..."

That seems pretty straightforward, right? Well, maybe not so much. Here's an article from January this year:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110119120406.htm

which seems to indicate that hydrolyzed wheat flour MAY BE SAFE for celiacs. In the scientific study, celiacs were able to tolerate baked goods made with fully hydrolyzed wheat flour (the hydrolyzing process reduces the concentration of gluten, apparently).

Now, if celiacs might tolerate baked goods that are made PRIMARILY from fully hydrolyzed wheat flour, one wonders whether McDonalds french fries, which contain only a small component of beef flavour, which ITSELF is only DERIVED from hydrolyzed wheat, might be safe.

I don't know what the answer is. I suspect as always that it's a personal decision. And of course this ignores the ever-present cross-contamination risks inherent in a fast food restaurant. But it's enough to make me change my answer from "no way" to "possibly...let's get some more info."

but why is MCD's USA EVEN using "hydrolyzed wheat" in fries ANYHOW???? IT'S F****ING BS. Just fry the straight potatoes in NON-Hydrogenated/bad oils...PERIOD.Sooo glad I found this info. Thanks for sharing/posting everyone! UNBELIEVABLE all the awful, inflammatory BS flavorings/preservatives/additives hidden in our US food supply.

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